Onew woke up really early, feeling strange. He tried to turn around, with his eyes still closed, but he couldn’t move his arm. He tried once again and nothing happened, so he decided to open his eyes. When he did that he had to control himself the most he could to not scream. Onew remembered that Jonghyun had fallen asleep on his hand, but now only his head was resting on Onew’s arm.

“Oh my God!” Onew said, too close to Jonghyun’s ear, causing him to wake up and swell.

“What are you doing? You scared me!” Jonghyun said, closing his eyes to calm down. “Are you out of your mind?”

“J-Jonghyun… You are…”

“If you’re going to say that I’m cute when I swell, shut up! There’s nothing cute about this.” Jonghyun said, secretly feeling proud of himself.

“N-No. Y-You’re a giant. I mean, an Elf. You turned into an Elf.”

“God, this is serious. Maybe you hit your head on a rock or something because you-“

“Jonghyun!” Onew interrupted, widening his eyes. “We are the same size, don’t you see?”

Jonghyun looked at the other and realized that he was right. They were actually with the same size, which made him feel nerves in the stomach. What was wrong? He looked around to see if Taeyeon had turned into an Elf, and yelled when he saw that she was as big as him. The scream woke Taeyeon, who looked at Jonghyun with a sleepy face. When he started to speak really fast, she understood that something was wrong, and asked him to slow down. However, Taeyeon almost cried of laughing when Jonghyun said something about them turning into giants.

“What are you saying? We’re as big as we were yesterday or last month.”

“Taeyeon, you’re not understanding! Look at him!” He said, pulling Onew to his side. “See? Same height!”

“Yes, but that’s not because we’re giants!”

“Right!” Onew said, nodding. “That’s because you’re Elves!”

“No! It was you who turned into a fairy!” Taeyeon explained, still laughing, and rolling her eyes. “Look at Kibum and Minho.”

“Jesus Christ! Now they’re really giants! They don’t look like Elves anymore!” Jonghyun said, desperate. “What? Fairy? He’s a… Oh, you’re a fairy!” He said, looking at Onew, and laughing. “This is such a… disaster! That’s a disaster! Kibum!” He called, flying towards the fairy that changed colors and landing next to his ear. “Kibum! You’re big and Onew is small and I don’t know what is happening! We’re turning into Elves and they’re turning into fairies. Is this a spell?”

“Why are you screaming? Shut up, let me sleep.”

“Kibum, this is serious. Key?” He called, having no answer. “KEY! Wake up! What are we supposed to do now? We need to bring you both back to normal!”

“I don’t know, okay? If I knew, I would have done something already.”

“But… Hey! Why are you so close to Minho?” Jonghyun asked, frowning a little.

“One more word and I’ll rip out your wings.” Kibum threatened, finally opening his eyes. “Why are you bothering me? You’re the prince; you need to find a cure for what is happening to us.”

Jonghyun gave up on arguing and flied to the ground. Taeyeon was trying to sleep, once it was too early, and Onew was waking Minho, so Jonghyun decided to sit and think about what to do. At that moment, a squirrel appeared next to him, smelling his wings.

“Go away!” Jonghyun said, moving his hands. “Go, go!” He repeated, clapping. But the squirrel sat next to him, ignoring his attempts to send him away. “Go away!”

When the animal just shook its ears, Jonghyun frowned and decided that it was best to give up. He sat there for a while with his arms crossed, trying to ignore the squirrel’s attempts of having him petting him, until Onew came and said a few words to him and in a question of seconds, the squirrel was nowhere to be seen.

Jonghyun’s mouth fell open and he turned to Onew. “How did you do that?”

“Hmmm…” Onew rubbed his neck and looked away, embarrassed. “That’s my… that’s my power.”

“Is it really?”

“Yeah… I know it’s not a great power but it’s really useful sometimes, you know? And I like being able to understand animals-“

“I think it’s amazing!” Jonghyun exclaimed, getting up. “I mean, just now I couldn’t get rid of the damn squirrel and all it took was a few words from you and he was gone.”

Onew grinned upon hearing the prince’s words. “I’m glad I could be of help. What’s wrong?” He asked when Jonghyun’s features fell and he took a sit on the floor again. The Elf joined him seconds after and patted his thigh. “Care to share?”

“Key is right.” Jonghyun finally spoke, after a good while of silence. “I’m the prince, I should know what to do in these situations but instead I’m just freaking out at every second. I don’t know what do to and it just keeps getting worse.”

“Calm down, Jonghyun.”

“How can I calm down? My sister is missing and I don’t have a clue of where she might be. I don’t even know if she’s alive! What if we’re going to the Shadow Fairies castle and she’s not there? What am I going to tell my mother?” His breathing was irregular by now. “I’m the prince and yet here I am depending on other fairies and on Elves that must be as clueless as me and expect me to do something! And I can’t! I can’t do something because I-“

His words were caught on his throat when he felt Onew’s arms close around his body, making him burry his head on his shoulder. Inexplicably, some of the tension he was felling earlier dissipated and he relaxed into the embrace, letting his thoughts took another course.

Jonghyun was still enjoying the way Onew’s body felt like it was made to be next to his when the latter started to speak. “I know it’s hard to believe but you’re not alone on this.”

“I have you all with me, I know but being the prince I have responsibilities and-“

“You’re not the only prince here.” Minho’s voice was heard and Jonghyun quickly pushed Onew away sending him stumble into Minho, who caught him between his fingers. “Easy there, Jonghyun.”

“What do you mean I’m not the only prince? Who’s the other? As far as I know neither you nor Onew are…”

Minho smiled and let go of the other Elf and bowed. “Choi Minho, prince of the Elves.”

“What?” Jonghyun asked, eyes bulging.

Onew flew around. “Minho!”

“Are you kidding me? Why didn’t you say that earlier?” Kibum asked, only hearing the last part when he was approaching the trio, completely stunned. “Look at how I’ve been talking to you!”

“Are you really worried about that?”

Considering Minho’s question, Key pursed his lips in thought only to lively shake his head. “No, not really.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Minho nodded and turned to Jonghyun to continue their conversation. Jonghyun was really eager to know why Minho had made his identity a secret. After explaining him his reasons, the other wanted to know if Minho had any idea of what was happening to them only to receive a negative answer. The Elf was still fixed on going to the Shadow Fairies kingdom since he was sure that he would find all the solutions there as well as Junghee.

Jonghyun’s only option was to agree with him since he still wanted to make the pact with the Elves. He also didn’t have many choices so he figured it was better to continue to follow Minho than to go alone with only Kibum and Taeyeon in search of his sister.

After a while, Minho decided that it was better to restart their journey, not because they were still far but because they still needed to prepare their plan. So he left Onew with Jonghyun, who as soon as Minho turned away bombarded the Elf with questions, and walked to Kibum who had Taeyeon on his hand and smiled to her as she was talking about some weird dream she had. He patted Kibum on his shoulder and told them that they needed to prepare themselves because they were leaving soon.

When everyone was ready, they departed.